Our Sick Culture

Our culture is terminally ill. After last week’s election, it is too late to save us.

It’s the little things that destroy nations. Let’s take the great Roman Empire as an example. Historians point to a variety of reasons for its demise.

Some folks simply say all great societies eventually mature and die. Others blame the failure on greed. Or an overzealous government. But one small group of researchers points its finger at lead. They say Rome fell because it was poisoned.

The theory has been widely discredited, but like any good conspiracy, there are still plenty of folks who blame the heavy metal. They say lead pipes, tainted pottery, lead-based sweeteners and even heavy doses of lead in popular types of wine slowly handicapped the grand society.

With each new day… Rome got dumber and dumber. Each generation was sicker than the last.

I like the folks who continue to hang on to the theory even though it is based on few facts. They understand it’s the little things that bring us down. They get the idea that great declines don’t start or end in a single day or even a decade. It takes generations to annihilate a great society.

Like I’ve written many times before… the American culture is sick. And just as with Rome’s problem with lead, the vast majority of us are ignorant to the threat around us.

Our problem is very natural. We value today more than we value tomorrow.

Few folks understand that the world’s most potent force – the power of compounding – transcends the borders of the financial world. Compounding doesn’t just turn our pennies into dollars. It turns our lies into prison terms. It transforms experimentation into addiction. And it turns laziness into failure.

Valuing today more than tomorrow is why we cheat on our spouses. It’s why we go into debt to buy a house we can’t afford. It’s why we speed down the highway when we’re in a hurry to buy a coffee.

But mostly… it is why America has failed.

Last week’s election is a great example. It proves the theory – we’ve reached the cultural tipping point.

On Tuesday, 50.6% of the nation voted for today, while 47.8% of the country voted for tomorrow.

It’s clear an Obama vote was a vote that makes today feel better. It was about giving money to the poor, striking at the rich, rescuing broken companies, and eating a hamburger today that we’ll pay for tomorrow.

A Romney vote, on the other hand, was a vote for tomorrow. If he won the office, today wouldn’t feel so nice. Fewer folks would get handouts. Companies would fail. The rich might even get richer… and the poor would get poorer. But eventually, the Romney voters knew, today would become tomorrow.

That’s what this whole fiscal cliff is about. Tomorrow is knocking at our door… and it is pissed. It wants what it’s owed. But our leaders can only think of today. After all, that’s what we just told them to do – all 50.6% of us.

Bill’s synopsis of the mess is right. Washington will turn this cliff into a waterslide. There will be a lot of screaming and yelling, but in the end we’ll all get soaked.

The problem is we’ll never dry off.

Most folks believe we’ll get soaked with a jump in taxes and a cut in government spending next year. That’s true. January is going to hurt. Wall Street has a lot of shuffling to do.

But the real pain will come later… when the power of compounding comes to get us. Just like each dose of lead made the Romans sicker, each time we push today’s problems into tomorrow, the danger increases exponentially.

Our elected leaders will find a way to push this mess under the rug. After all, all of the deadlines they face are self-imposed. This mess is entirely a political endeavor.

But that will change. Eventually the power of compounding will knock us to our knees.

It is coming. We can’t stop it. Our culture is sick and the majority of us refuse to take the medicine we need.

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